I Am Glad My Fraternity House Did Not Have The Following Things

A Pool

When I was a rushing, I saw a house on the Ole Miss campus that had a pool in back and thought it looked pretty cool. Now that I have graduated, I thank whatever god that will have me that my house did not have a pool. A pool, at first glance, looks like a necessary addition to a top tier fraternity house. A foolish rushee would believe that having a pool would mean that the house could have pool ragers with bikini clad sorostitutes and no negative repercussions whatsoever. What the naïve waste of sperm does not take into account is upkeep and liability.

A pool needs to be cleaned pretty regularly. A pool at a fraternity house could use a clean every half hour starting on Wednesday and not stopping until early Sunday morning. Puke, jizz, piss, shit, chew, and whatever vile substance which can be created by man will come into contact with that pool on a consistent basis.

Further someone will need to be on the lookout for negligent drunks who may drown in the pool, which is to say this means everyone, which is to say the risk manager and the president of the house would be wise to own or borrow an assault rifle to make sure no one enters the aquatic hell hole which has cursed their beloved fraternity house.

A pool at a fraternity house could use a clean every half hour starting on Wednesday and not stopping until early Sunday morning.

Moving on to maintenance, pools need to be drained from time to time to check for cracks. Coincidentally, by the time the pool is drained, for whatever reason there may be, a shortage of the necessary funding will arise and the pool may sit empty. As is common knowledge, nothing attracts the wild “skateboarding geed” like an empty pool. Watching these wanna-be Tony Hawks crash and burn attempting a Super McVarial 900 can be entertaining for maybe an hour, but don’t forget a primary characteristic of this boarder geed is that he has little to no money. This means once this soul skater gets injured he is going to be looking for a geed lawyer. Geed lawyer will take time from his fulfilling yet financially fledgling environmental law practice to come sue you for boarder geed’s own dumb action.

Lastly, to the unfortunate souls who have a fraternity house with a pool, my recommendation is that you fill it up with cement and then turn the liquid lawsuit into something more practicable like a tennis court, a basketball court, or pledge valet pickup/drop off area.

University Owned Property

A hallmark of any respectable fraternity house is durability. There is no place like a fraternity house to test structural durability. As a result of these “tests” a man’s fraternal living environment can appear, smell, and feel shitty. While this shittieness should be appreciated, at the time one experiences it they may be desperate to improve the house living arrangements. This is where the university comes to the rescue hoping to be welcomed by you as the next best thing to Wagon Wheel being sung in harmony by a buxom group of topless volleyball players.

A university spokesperson will come to the house showing drawings of what appears to be a fraternal Disney World. However, there is a catch. The university will take ownership of the property on which this proposed palace is placed and the house will have something like a common area your house and other fraternity/student organizations will share. Every dirty trick in the book will be used to get your house to sign on the dotted line. Nationals will buy in because the move will mean they get a nice big check to go along with a substantial drop in liability. The worst will be if every Greek house on campus is tied into this deal.

So what? Fuck those other houses. Don’t be short sighted. What could happen is that the gullible freshmen sorority girl you used to give “house tours” to will turn into a sophomore slam who decides to institute a poundtown lockout because your house is still carrying the flag of independence which prevents her from moving into her own palacious palace.

There is no place like a fraternity house to test structural durability.

So what happens if your house caves and signs up to be part of the university sponsored concentration camp? First, no more bottle rocket wars. That space where you once exchanged playful volleys of pyrotechnic fury with your fraternal neighbor will now turn into a common area. This commons area will be a fraternal demilitarized zone, where brief passing encounters consisting of spiteful grunts and insults will become the norm. Second and more importantly, fun grinds to a snail’s pace as the university proceeds to put you under the same tyrannical control that it reserves for GDIs who live in dorms. “Dry” will actually mean dry, as in no alcohol, for there will be impactful repercussions if it is found on property. “Quiet Hours” will be expected to be observed. No more dance parties on Wednesday night, boys, because you signed up to live in Dean Wormer’s den of doom. Don’t think it can happen to you? Then go ahead and sign on the dotted line. Eventually, monitors will move in to ensure rule compliance, and then expulsion proceedings will take place, until finally your house is either gone or it becomes a pathetic castrated version of its former self.

Make no mistake; if your house signs up to live on university owned property, you can expect to be fucked over just like the Indians were when they signed away their land to our forefathers, the difference being instead of living in America, you’ll be walking into North Korea.

Live in Alumni

A fraternity’s alumni base is supposed to be the tough outer shell that supports and protects the fraternity from outside threats. Alumni are to be respected for graduating and leaving as better men. Alumni are supposed to move on to lead successful lives with salaries big enough to fill a separate bank account, hidden from his wife and designated for the support of the undergraduate brethren. As an alum myself, I continue to cherish and remember my days living in the fraternity house, but at this point in life, to move into that den of debauchery for an extended stay would be both sad and depressing.

Alumni are supposed to move on to lead successful lives with salaries big enough to fill a separate bank account, hidden from his wife and designated for the support of the undergraduate brethren.

This is not to say that alumni cannot ever crash at the house, but the appropriate period for alumni visits should start at the beginning of September and last until the end of November. Further, these visits should be limited to the college weekend, that being Thursday through Friday. There are two reasons for the restrictive alumnus guest protocol. First, he had his time. Upon graduation, an alum is to move on and strive to be an example of post-grad success to the chapter. By fostering an alum’s stagnated growth after graduation, you are allowing him to take up space and consume resources intended for undergrads. A pledge can be forcefully designated to DD, an alum cannot. Second, the alum who agrees to move in will be a Buzz Killington sent down from nationals to kill fun.

The alum described above sounded like a piece of worthless shit; he is. That guy will not be living in because he’s a liability, likely did not even graduate, and has done something to piss off someone important. The alum that will move in has his nose so far up nationals’ ass the lump in their throat is probably his nose (thank you Band of Brothers). This guy is the atypical suck up whose only dream was to leave campus and go work nationals. In a cruel twist of irony, right after he steps into the national headquarters, he will get sent back to campus to “clean things up” at his former house. This guy will take to his mission with a vengeance because this is a chance for him to look good by fixing his former house, which in his view is holding him back from his goal of being Grand Douche.

You can argue all you want, but you know it’s true because who else would choose to go back and deal with the pack of undergraduate animals they were formerly associated with. The people you would hope to move back in won’t because they are off making real money and enjoying having nice things for once. The guy who will move in has a dick that just went from six to midnight when he got his assignment because he used to seek infrequent pats on the back for being a buzz kill, now he is getting paid for it, minimally at that. I wish I could recommend some way to make this guy’s stay particularly intolerable, but such treatment would only result in a charter getting revoked. If it gets to the point that an alum has to live in, you should just grit your teeth and toe the line until he is satisfied, otherwise the house could be turn over to geeds and no one wants that.

I feel so bad for the kids that got suckered into moving onto campus at my school. They have to register parties (with guest lists that they randomly confirm), you cant drink outside, there’s at least one cop chilling there all the time, the houses are basically dorms with letters on them… it’s just terrible.